HalfLife: a novel
by suchadave
Summary: This is just a little project I'm starting. I plan to include elements and characters from the game and both expansions. Any reviews would be appreciated.
1. Prologue

Prologue  
  
The man glanced around, senses keen to divine any possible threat. Breathing. The sound was coming from somewhere. He had learned what many hadn't, and those many had paid with blood and soul; even a single sound, the faint wisp of breath, like a whispered kiss on the neck of a lover, could spell doom. This wasn't his home. He knew it, and it knew it. There was no safety, no rest, no freedom. Around each corner, deep in crevices, and creeping through the air; death was waiting to pounce.  
  
There was a moment of eery epiphany when the man realized the breath burning in his ears was his own. It came in ragged gasps; inhuman. He no longer strode with the bearing of a man, proud and confident. He skulked in shadows, jumping at specters. Once the hunter, now the hunted.  
  
He gained some comfort by squeezing the shotgun in his hands. It was solid. It was truth. It was life.  
  
Continuing on his hurried trek, he ascended two hills plentiful with vegetation that wasn't quite. Not plant and not animal, everything in this land seemed to be hostile.  
  
Listening to his thrashing heart left his mind to wander, and he nearly lost his life for it. He shrieked and rolled to his side as a barbed tentacle lashed out, sensing his nearness. But the plant-thing couldn't move and couldn't follow. He carefully edged his way out of the thing's range and ran on.  
  
No more hiding. He was in full sprint now. Home was so very close.  
  
Aroused by the noise and commotion, a bulbous headed horror floated into sight. Its grotesque, squinty eyes scanned the ground from where it hovered twenty feet in the air, groping for a vision of the intruder. A screech of triumph echoed in the thin, green atmosphere when it spotted the bright orange suit.  
  
The screech was promptly silenced by a much deeper, throaty bellow; an angry burst from the shotgun, pumping two shells into the thing's ripe, melon-like head. Falling dead to the mossy turf, it was harmless. But the damage was already done. The call had been made. Now reinforcements were only a question of when.  
  
Taking no time to praise the kill, the shocked man sprinted on. He covered a familiar-looking plateau, pausing to glance back. He deeply regretted this action and redoubled his speed. Finally, he reached the mouth of the cave.  
  
There was a transmitter there, sitting in humble attire; weather beaten and faded. The man had never seen anything so beautiful. He pounded the buttons, screeching into the receiver, "Please! Help me...I'm here!"  
  
A disembodied voice came back through the box. "Do you have it?"  
  
"Yes! Please hurry!" He withdrew the object from his pack and admired it for a moment. The dull yellow crystal was unimpressive to his unlearned eye. All it was to him was a source of frustration and terror.  
  
The cold, emotionless voice came back without praise, only more orders. "Place it in the teleporter that appears."  
  
"What...what about me?"  
  
"Do as you are told. We will only run one at a time."  
  
"But I don't have that time!" He didn't bother to listen to the response, if there was any.  
  
A bright, flickering ball of green energy spontaneously appeared at his side, humming with barely contained electricity. The voice had spoken the truth: this teleporter was much too small for a whole person. Having no choice but to obey, the man shoved the crystal into the beam, watching happily as it disappeared.  
  
He glanced back once again and all happiness vanished. He would not be alone for much longer.  
  
"Ok, I'm ready! Send one for me!"  
  
There was a pause.  
  
His heart was pounding with a fierce note, like some primitive jungle beat. It was the knowledge of certain death that prompted the buzzing cadence.  
  
"We cannot expend that energy. You usefulness is at its end."  
  
The man gulped. Understanding, but not accepting. Then he furiously kicked the mechanical box, tears of betrayal flushing his face.  
  
Now new sounds were building. Squawks and screams and calls. Shadows began to take form all around him. The end was at hand.  
  
He pleaded with the merciless sky. Its shifting colors were dizzying. Like after a summer rainstorm, the light shone through and waved, dividing the canopy into a miasma of shades. But this rainbow held no promise of redemption or peace. This was a sky of naught but death and plague and pestilence.  
  
Grasping the shotgun as his only anchor to reality, he checked his remaining ammunition. One shell. From all his pockets and magazines, there sat only a single shell. The answer was clear. Although there was no brilliant ball of energy, he had found his ticket home.  
  
The shotgun felt very heavy as its dark, cyclopic eye stared him in the face. With serene, almost content limbs, he held it at arm's length, breathed a pronounced sigh of relief, and squeezed the trigger.  
  
Trickles of blood seeped into the alien soil. The man fell, faceless and nameless. Not the first and certainly not the last to die in a land impossibly far from home. 


	2. 1

1 "I am not a nerd."  
  
He knew it was bad when he couldn't even believe his own words. Trying the simple statement again, Gordon Freeman added emphasis he didn't feel, staring at a reflection he didn't like.  
  
Thick-rimmed glasses disobediently eased their way down his slender nose, forcing him to push them back into place. Now it was a done deal. Only a nerd has to do something like that.  
  
"Maybe I don't need these old things anymore," he mused to himself. As he shrugged them off, the noisy railcar he was riding in became instantly awash in foggy lines and blotched colors. "Nevermind."  
  
The several speakers in the vehicle belched a moment of static, then gave way to a digitized, distinctly feminine voice. "Welcome to the Black Mesa transit system. Now outbound from Dormitory Section C. The current time is 8:47 A.M."  
  
"I know." Gordon didn't need any snooty PA system telling him how late he was. The utterly empty car and his own sweating brow were enough of a reminder.  
  
Late. Of all days, why today? This was to be his first day at the miraculous facility, beginning what he hoped to be a very profitable career. A career that now seemed desperately in jeopardy due to twenty minutes of roguish over-sleeping.  
  
Continuing its liturgy of announcements, the voice plodded on, nearly as slowly as the mechanized tortoise itself. "The current temperature is 93 degrees, with an expected high of 105. The Black Mesa Research Facility is kept at a pleasant 68 degrees for the comfort of all within."  
  
Sitting down with nothing to do but sit down, Freeman glanced out the window at the crawling New Mexico landscape. The young man chuckled. Landscape. That was far too kind a word. Desolation. Barrenness. Sterility. Now those were words. The bleak desert scene of sparse brush and more than sparse sand dunes soon slipped away, though, as the car headed beneath the blazing yellow carpet, and into the warren of underground passages that made up the vast bulk of the center.  
  
Gordon normally enjoyed this little ride, admiring the sheer volume and complexity of the labyrinth. Truly, it was a testament to modern science and technology, blended into a seamless form for cutting-edge research. There was no other place like Black Mesa in the world. Fresh out of the graduate school at M.I.T., the man had jumped at the amazing opportunity. Even if he had to scrub toilets or get down on his knees and worship the mighty senior scientists, he would do it. Anything to be at Black Mesa.  
  
"Please keep all limbs and extremities within the car for the duration of the ride, and do not attempt to open the doors."  
  
Rolling his eyes, Freeman went back to his distracted thoughts.  
  
With electricity burning a blue fire of life into the mighty beast, the car rumbled on, unaware of the fears or passions or insecurities of its sole passenger.  
  
The narrow tunnel closed in claustrophobically, embracing the vehicle in a cylindrical grapple. Yellow lights flickered on the stone ceiling, illuminating the lonely path to the bowels of the earth.  
  
For a moment the tunnel expanded and the railcar was escorted along its faithful track through a machinery warehouse the size of several football fields. Far below the car, which was drawn along the impossibly high ceiling, forklifts and cranes exchanged pallets and crates while men scuttled about, giving and receiving orders. From his lofty perch Gordon thought they looked like ants.  
  
Then the gigantic hall was gone and he was again bathed in the dark shroud of more tunnels. These were short-lived, though, as he inched through more caves and more storerooms.  
  
After what felt like an eternity, the railcar stopped at a dead end, then jolted a bit as the circular platform it was resting on began to sink lower. As each second ticked away, the blue, cloudless sky gradually dissolved into a distant memory.  
  
Darkness. There was nothing now but darkness and machines and scientists.  
  
The car again had to halt its progress as flashing blockades moved into place. A yellow, spider-like machine, was crossing the tracks. In its powerful arms it held an enormous container that no doubt housed some very dangerous, many-syllable-named chemical.  
  
"Maybe he'll drop it and blow us all to kingdom come. Now that would be an excuse to be late." Against Gordon's callous hopes, the machine's grip was tight as a vice, and it soon vanished into the network, leaving the railcar free to mosey on its way again.  
  
Even for all his complaining, the young man was beginning to feel better. Born with a bright and often pig-headed optimism, he could never stay down for long. Besides, the tedious ride was all but finished.  
  
They were passing through better lit tunnels now. There were beautiful, pristine labs on both sides; glass walls revealing countless white-coat donned individuals already hard at work. To have his own lab, his own assistants, his own top-secret project, that was what Gordon fantasized. Then he glanced back down at his security badge. It unabashedly proclaimed him a Research Associate, Clearance Level 3. Not a bad start, but definitely not a place to find permanent contentment.  
  
The next room always made Gordon gulp. He had ridden this same railcar quite a few times in his week of orientation, but he never got used to this cavern. It glowed with a sickly green shimmer as radioactive waste pooled in great puddles on the floor. Everyone always said that the cars were perfectly safe. Shielded from any unhealthy rays or waves or photons. Freeman hoped for his sake, and the sake of any children he may ever want to conceive, that was the truth. Going sterile wasn't exactly on his list of things to do.  
  
"Not that it matters, who would do a nerd anyway?" The sullen thoughts of nerdhood had returned. Ever since he was a boy they had been impossible to shirk completely. He had played basketball, dated girls, and kept his body in peak shape, but it was to no avail. Every time he looked in the mirror, it only seemed to grin, stick out its tongue, and dub him "nerd".  
  
"Once the car has stopped, please wait for security personnel to open the doors. Have a safe, productive day."  
  
Finally, the false voice was finished, as was Gordon's quest for the sector known as Anomalous Materials: Test Labs and Control Facilities. His home away from home. Freeman laughed again. It wasn't his home away from home. It was his home. Period. For the foreseeable future he would eat, sleep, and work at Black Mesa. It sounded bad, but he didn't mind it. Personality-wise, his professors had always said that he was perfectly suited for hard-nosed research.  
  
Images of buck-toothed, nasal voiced nerds floated back into his mind.  
  
These were quickly dispelled as the car stopped with a jarring halt.  
  
A blue and black clad security guard read one more comic from his newspaper, gave up trying to understand it, and sauntered across the metal catwalk to where Gordon and his metal cocoon were waiting. "Looks like you're running a little late, Mr. Freeman."  
  
"Looks like you have quite a grasp for the painfully obvious," Gordon wanted to return. He checked himself, remembering that it was only his first day, and simply said, "Guess so."  
  
The guard punched some keys on an exterior pad and the door breathed a sigh as it buckled and opened.  
  
Like a hound bounding after its aloof master, the young man was forced to trail at the heels of the pudgy guard. Their chorus of footsteps sang on the metal path as they approached the security station and airlock.  
  
At last, the guard hit the few keys that would open the imposing barrier.  
  
A handful of digits. That was it. All the knowledge that the guard had which the young research associate didn't; but it made all the difference. And he seemed to lord it over Gordon, tapping each plastic numeral with methodical sloth.  
  
Just when Gordon convinced himself that he could handle no more, the wonderful hiss of processed air tickled in his ears, signaling the release of the airlock.  
  
"Good luck," the gatekeeper mumbled, having already returned to the funnies.  
  
Freeman didn't respond. As the first door sealed behind him and the second began to unlock, he was too busy wishing that this day which had only just begun, would just as soon be over. 


	3. 2

2  
  
Two security guards sat in the break room, waiting for their day to begin. It was still ten minutes until the shift change and they had nothing better to do than drink some coffee and have a doughnut. High up on one wall a clock ticked loudly. The handful of scientists in the room all sat silently, reading or poring over detailed notes.  
  
Sitting on an ugly orange sofa apart from the more learned individuals, the blue-clad pair stared at the progressing hands of the timepiece, begging them to slow. Blue-Shift was about to begin, and neither were particularly eager.  
  
"I'm going to do it today."  
  
"Do what?"  
  
"Ask her out."  
  
"Why? You don't have a chance."  
  
"You're such a downer, Calhoun. You know, you could use a girlfriend yourself."  
  
The man chuckled and unconsciously patted his more than abundant belly. "I already have a wife."  
  
"Doesn't stop a lot of guys."  
  
Powder from a doughnut dusted his thick lips as he shook his head. "Man, one woman is more than enough for me. You get one and then tell me how ready you are to deal with two." Calhoun was the older of the pair and usually considered the wiser.  
  
"Oh boy am I ready. You think you could ever get the two to...you know...?"  
  
"No. You couldn't. Believe me, one is enough." He put down the few remaining bites of pastry, licked his fingers, and looked his partner in the eye. Calhoun had worked at Black Mesa for nearly ten years now and knew the place about as well as he knew women; that is, not nearly as well as he imagined. Still, he would be damned if this insolent little pup didn't respect his experience on either front.  
  
"Alright Ricks, look at it this way. Do you really want to put up with two birthdays, two anniversaries, two mood-swings, and two, um, special times of the month?"  
  
Ricks was obliged to shrug. "Ok, good point." This was only the young man's third month at Black Mesa, but he had shown so much promise that he had already been promoted to the highest clearance and highest responsibility: Blue-Shift.  
  
It had taken Calhoun almost seven years to reach the same position. Obviously, this significant time span was a matter of great contention between the two, but they still got along well enough. They had to. In Blue-Shift anything could happen at anytime, with highly classified, highly dangerous tests going on. You had to be able to rely on your partner.  
  
"Well, I think I will just stick with one for now."  
  
"Easier said than done. You have to get that one first."  
  
"Watch and learn, old man. You may be more experienced, but you're also fatter."  
  
Sucking in his stomach, Calhoun scowled. "What the hell does that mean?"  
  
Ricks rose to his feet and ran a hand through his neatly-gelled hair. "That means the ladies can't turn down a specimen like me."  
  
"Alright, chicken legs, let's see what you've got."  
  
The man nodded and started to walk to the opposite end of the room where his quarry sat, reading a newspaper.  
  
He checked his breath by quickly exhaling into his hand, then readjusted his shiny black torso armor. Ricks had even polished it, just for today. Pulling a chair away from the table, he casually rested one foot on the seat, leaning his elbow on his knee. He stroked his chin just a little and flashed the grandest smile he could muster. "Hey there."  
  
No response from the woman. She didn't speak and didn't move the paper, which was rudely blocking her face.  
  
"I said hey there." The smile was still glued in place, leaving him to look like a buffoon. Or a clown. Either way, things weren't quite up to par yet.  
  
"So you did."  
  
Ricks wasn't flustered, but he was getting a little annoyed that she wouldn't even let him see her face. Time to pull out the big guns, he reasoned. The lines that were tried and true, from all posterity. "So, baby, what's your sign?"  
  
"No Trespassing."  
  
"Oh...wow." The smile did falter, if for only a moment.  
  
From where he was sitting, Calhoun couldn't hear the words, but the message was clear enough. He rubbed his forehead and grimaced for his foolish young friend. This wasn't going to be pretty.  
  
In an ashtray at the woman's hand, a cigarette sat, listlessly spouting a thin trail of smoke.  
  
The security guard put on his most patronizing, Smoky the Bear, loveable voice and said, "You know, smoking is bad for your health."  
  
"You're bad for my health."  
  
Ricks was utterly stumped. What do you do with a woman like this? Only one notion came to mind. He started to turn away and muttered, "Bitch," under his breath.  
  
Finally, this brought the newspaper down.  
  
He turned back, staring into a startling set of violet eyes. They were set wide in a perfectly chiseled face and beamed with exuberant energy.  
  
"Is that the best you can do?"  
  
"Well...um...I don't know." His mouth was full of cotton balls and his brain felt like it had taken the day off, maybe heading into the country for a picnic. Regardless of where it was, it certainly wasn't with the poor man when he needed it most.  
  
The woman was absolutely stunning. She could have been a model or an actress or even a stripper. Ricks' mouth was moving, but the words faltered. "How about, you know, we could go out sometime...I was just thinking."  
  
"Don't bother. It doesn't suit you." The newspaper wall went back between them.  
  
Dragging his butchered pride behind him, the security guard returned to the sanctuary of the sofa. "It's my fault. I never should have tried."  
  
Calhoun nodded. "Finally, you're speaking like you've got a brain cell or two."  
  
"No, I mean, I was so blind. I should have figured it from the very beginning...she's a lesbo."  
  
The elder man stifled a boisterous laugh. "That's it, Romeo."  
  
"What else could it be?"  
  
"No, no you're right. If she just preferred hotdogs over tacos, your frank would be first on her list."  
  
Ricks shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about? No wonder you're fat. All you think about is food."  
  
Ignoring the comment, Calhoun prodded his partner to get up. "Come on, we've got to get to our station. There's supposed to be some big test today."  
  
Still sulking about his bitter rejection, the security guard drooled with sarcasm. "Oh well, let's just run right over there now. Sheesh, what was I thinking? Black Mesa is going to be the rocking place to be today!"  
  
"Just shut your mouth and walk."  
  
"Whatever man."  
  
As they passed by the female scientist, Calhoun corrected himself. "Sorry Ricks, I mean get your foot out of your mouth, then shut it."  
  
The young man gave his associate a favorite hand gesture, then led the way to their security station, bracing himself for another painfully dull day. 


End file.
